


One Step Closer

by ReaperWriter



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Academics, First Dates, First Meetings, It's Teen because I used a few swears, M/M, Modern AU No Immortality, Nicky Who Knows Himself and What He Wants, Nile Set Them Up, Nile's a Good Friend, Slight Jaded and a Little Awkward Joe, blind dates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27113788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: Professor Yusuf "Joe" al-Kaysani has pretty much given up on finding romantic love. He believes it's a thing. Just maybe not for him. And that's fine. He has lots of love in his life. He's a son, a brother, an uncle, and a friend.Then his departmental partner in crime Nile Freeman asks him to let her set him up with someone she met at New Faculty Orientation, and Joe can't quite say no.So here he is...wasting a perfectly good Friday night.****Nile sets up Joe and Nicky on a blind date, and it goes pretty darn well.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 26
Kudos: 494





	One Step Closer

**Author's Note:**

> The Title is from the lyrics of A Thousand Years by Christina Perri.

Joe didn’t want to be here. Not at this restaurant, which Nile had clearly picked for the ambiance-low lights, little fancy oil lamps on the tables, two layers of table linens. Not at this table, tucked into a side alcove so it had that secluded, just the two of us feel. And certainly not on this...date. He’s a thirty-three year old man. Date is such a weirdly juvenile sounding word. Date. Date, date, date.

To be quite honest, he’d given up on the whole date thing. The romantic love thing. Clearly, he wasn’t meant to have it, whatever it was. He’d been trying his entire adult life. People he met in the campus queer group in college. Internet dating. Speed dating. Tinder and Grinder and OK Cupid. Blind dates and bars. A few relationships had limped along for a few months, but ended when the initial spark fizzled. Usually the spark failed to be there at all.

And that was fine. Really. He had plenty of love in his life. He had his family, when he got home to see them. He had his friends he loved like a second family. He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a friend. He loved his people fiercely, and they loved him. That would be enough.

Which is why when Nile, his colleague turned honorary little sister and partner in crime during department meetings, asked to set him up, he hadn’t been able to refuse. She swore up and down that she’d met someone perfect for him, another new faculty member in her orientation group in a different department. Pretty please, Joe.

Pretty please.

So here he was ten minutes early, wasting a night he and Book could have spent yelling at football. He paid for European League access for a reason.

“Yusuf?” A softly accented voice broke up his thoughts.

Joe looked up from his club soda and choked on air. All Nile had told him was that she was setting him up with a man. Nothing else. A surprise. He’d find Joe.

She didn’t say he’d look like a statue of a fucking Roman emperor.

Shoving his chair back hard enough he almost toppled it, he stood. “Yes. I mean, that’s me. I’m Yusuf. Or Joe, if you like. Hi.”

Smooth, Yusuf al-Kaysani. Fabled most charming lecturer in Art History. Real smooth.

The man smiled gently and Joe wanted to sink through the floor. Was there a Roman god to pray to for that? It didn’t seem like something you asked Allah for. Pluto, maybe? Proserpina? 

“I’m Nicolò di Genova, but most people call me Nicky.” He held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet the man Nile speaks to highly of.”

Joe took the offered hand, warm and slightly callused and shook it. And kept shaking it for probably a minute too long. “Right. Nile. Terrific young woman. Rising star in our department. Saves my sanity in meetings.”

Let go of his hand, Yusuf. The voice in his head sounded like Book. Not helpful.

Joe dropped it like a scalding rock. What the actual fuck was wrong with him?

Well, besides the man’s eyes that were the color of the sea off the coast of Tunis in his childhood? Or the breadth of his shoulders and how the tapered down to his waist under his sweater like a Renaissance statue? Or the way his little half smile highlighted the beauty mark to one side of his mouth?

“Shall we sit?” Nicky asked, gesturing to the table.

“Of course. Yes.” Yusuf watched as Nicky took the other chair and sat, then returned to his own. Nile was going to kill him.

Paul, the waiter, appeared like magic. “A drink, sir?”

Nicky glanced at Joe’s glass. “You aren’t drinking?”

Joe cringed a little. This tended to be an issue right off the bat in the past. A first weed out, as it were. “I don’t. Religious reasons. But I don’t mind if you do.”

“No, that’s fine.” Nicky turned his smile on Paul. “I’ll have the same as my friend here.”

Paul nodded, gave them a quick recital of the day’s specials which Joe caught exactly none of, and then left to go get Nicky’s drink.

“I really don’t mind,” Joe offered, fidgeting with his cocktail napkin. “If you want a glass of wine with your meal or something.”

Nicky raised his eyes and caught Joe’s, smiling at him again, easy and kind. “It is nothing. I do enjoy wine occasionally, but I also find that when getting to know someone, I like to be on the same level. Does that make sense?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah.” He glanced at the menu, which he hadn’t bothered to open at all while he waited. “I’ve never been here. Nile suggested it. Have you?”

“No.” Nicky opened his own menu, glancing at it. “The swordfish special sounded good.”

“Mmmm,” Joe replied, having no clue swordfish was a special. He scanned the menu himself now, considering his own options. Vegetarian meals made keeping Halal easier, and they had a few. “I think I might do the Portobello pasta.”

When he glanced up, Nicky was considering him closely, a sort of intense level of attention that made Joe’s heart race. Finally the other man sat back. “Vegetarian or observant Muslim?”

Joe blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“You mentioned the choice not to drink was religious. And you’re choosing a dish with no meat. I wondered if they’re connected?”

Joe sat up a little. Well, the other shoe had to drop eventually. If Joe not drinking didn’t do it, this usually did. “Is it a problem if I’m an observant Muslim?” he asked, his tone flinty.

This time Nicky blinked at him. “No. Of course not.”

Oh. “Oh?”

“Did I make it seem so? I apologize.” Nicky frowned, his expression going sad like a Saint’s card. Like Joe had managed to kick Christ’s puppy. 

Fuck.

“You just seemed sort of intense about figuring it out. Like….” Joe searched his mind for a good analog. “Like Sherlock Holmes? When he does the thing where he tells you your life after meeting you for a few minutes.”

Nicky barked out a laugh. “I’m sorry. That is a bad habit of mine. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Joe found himself laughing too. “No problem.”

Paul returned with Nicky’s drink, took their order, and left, promising to return with bread. Joe decided it was his turn for questions.

“So Nile didn’t tell me much about you at all. Only that she knows you from her new faculty orientation group. What department are you with?”

“Anthropology.” Nicky smiles. “I teach and research cultural anthropology, with an emphasis on world religions and spirituality.”

Joe nodded. “Hence recognizing my choices.”

“Well, and I’ve had a bit of a career reading people.” Nicky took a drink of his own club soda. “I very nearly became a priest.”

Joe’s mouth dropped open. “A what?”

“A Catholic priest. I spent a year in seminary.”

“What made you leave?” Joe asked instantly. Then quickly back scrambled. “I mean, that’s probably personal, and none of my business, I’m sorry…”

“Yusuf.” Joe stopped talking as Nicky smiled at him, free and easy. “It’s fine. It was almost a decade ago. And it’s relevant. I left because I found no matter how much I prayed, I still wanted to make love to men I was attracted to, and I became fairly certain that I wouldn’t be able to keep my vow of chastity.” He shrugged eloquently. “So I left. I went into academia instead.”

“Huh.” Joe paused and took a long sip of his drink. “I’m sorry, I’m normally a lot more…”

“Smooth?” Nicky asked, amused.

“I was going to say eloquent.” Joe set his glass down. “I haven’t done this in a while. The date thing.”

“Me either. But I’m enjoying myself.”

“Seriously?” Joe cocked an eyebrow at the man across from him. 

“Nile told me you were funny and incredibly handsome.” Nicky shrugged again, something effortless and so Italian about the gesture, grinning. “So far, she hasn’t been wrong.”

“Okay then.” Something in Joe shifted, relaxing. Okay. “So, Nicolò di Genova, tell me where you come from.”

“Are you familiar with Liguria?”

The conversation becomes an ebb and flow from there, like an ocean’s tide. They find shared commonalities in places traveled to and in things that make them homesick. Things they can jokingly disagree over. They end up having a fascinating discussion on their attempts to get their departments to work on decolonizing their curriculums, and their shared fondness for Nile.

By the time they’ve had dessert and paid the bill, all Joe can think is how much better this has been than any football game. Sorry Book.

Outside, in the misting early fall rain, he and Nicky stand off to the side of the door, under an awning.

“This was a lovely evening,” Nicky offered, then paused. For the first time that evening, he seemed like the shy one.

“It was. I had a great time.”

“If I was still the younger man I was in school, I would ask if you wanted to come home with me for a cappuccino.” Nicky took his hand, and a frisson of electricity ran down Joe's spine. “But I’m not looking for a one time thing like I was then. I’d like to see where this goes. If you do?”

Joe took the tiniest step forward. “Nicolò?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to see the Royal Jaipur exhibit with me at the City Museum on Sunday afternoon?”

“I would like that very much, Yusuf.”

“Good.” Joe paused. “Can I kiss you good night?”

Nicky didn’t answer, just leaned in, meeting Joe halfway. As kisses went, it wasn't perfect. They started off just a little off center, and Joe had to adjust for that Roman nose, tilting his head just a little bit more. But Nicky’s lips were soft and warm, just a little wet from the misty night and his hand came up and cupped Joe’s cheek for a moment. It ended too soon, gentle and chaste. A promise of a kiss.

“Let me see your phone,” Nicky said, holding his hand out as they stepped apart.

Joe handed it to him, watching as Nicky opened his contacts and added himself. From the pocket of Nicky's own jeans, a second phone dinged. 

“There. Now we can plan for Sunday.”

“Sunday.” Joe smiled. “It’s a date.”

“Goodnight, Yusuf,” Nicky said, smiling. 

“Good night, Nicolò. See you Sunday.” They stood for another moment or two, then moved apart, Joe toward the light rail station up the block and Nicky to the car park across the street.

As he walked, Joe smiled to himself. Perhaps romantic love could be meant for him after all.

His phone dinged. 

_Nicol ò: I am in great anticipation of Sunday._

Joe laughed.


End file.
